Long-term policies on job generation and flexible work arrangements are needed to address unemployment in a sustainable manner.
These calls were made separately by the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) and the Information Technology Business Processing Association of the Philippines (IBPAP).
Edgardo Lacson, ECOP president, said at National Chambers Management Forum on Tuesday Executive Order (EO) 140 or the National Employment Recovery Strategy (NERS) should be institutionalized through legislation so it can be adopted by future administrations.
ECOP is part of a tripartite NERS initiative aiming to create a million jobs at the end of 2021.
“The one million jobs… will be a continuous effort on the part of ECOP and PCCI (Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry). We have to institutionalize the EO because it (could be) subject to changes by incoming new administrations. We have to institutionalize it through legislation to have a stable policy and to ensure the program and budget (for it) will be sustained and continued,” Lacson said.
At the opening of the International Innovation Summit, IBPAP chairman Benedict Hernandez, said the IT-business process management industry wants to know the long-term policy and framework on hybrid or work-from-home arrangements as the economy reopens and cases of new coronavirus disease 2019 decline.
“In all discussions, debates, research and other studies that we see, nobody’s saying we’re just going to go back (to) the traditional brick and mortar once (the pandemic is) over. The resounding thinking and anticipation is there’s going to be some form of hybrid (on- site and work-from- home) out there,” Hernandez said.
The industry was able to get exemption from the government until March 2022 on maintaining a hybrid work scheme without affecting their incentives regime.
IBPAP sees this current policy as temporary that could change over time. – Irma Isip
